Sunday, January 29, 2012

The Move

No more Bar!! No more Bar!! No more Bar!!

A great massage/pedi place opened up around the corner of our old house. I wish now I had gone more. Here are my farewell toes. I love this color!

I can't believe that less than a week ago I hadn't even packed a single box. It has been a BUSY week! Towards the end, as I began to panic, Theo was awesome about going on play dates all by himself. Here is my big boy waving and yelling 'Bye Mommy!' And this was his first solo play date. My baby is growing up. And I finished so much more without his 'help'.

We also wanted to arrive as lightweight as possible. So it was time to say farewell to Sauli and Legs. Saidi and Moses were happy to help. Kaia really wanted to help too so we did it early in the morning before she clued in. I will tell a brief description so skip this part if you don't stomach that sort of thing.

Saidi held them tight and quietly slit their throats. It was quiet and calm and quick. Then we put them in hot water the feathers pulled out easily. I was surprised at how quickly a real chicken begins to look like a store bought chicken. I was also surprised at how small the chickens turned out to be. I thought both of them were much larger than average but the actual body was average.

Then we removed the lower legs, head, and guts. Saidi took the legs, head, heart, liver, and kidneys home. At least I think it was the kidneys, I have to do some research on that, they only knew the words in Swahili. Inside of Legs we were able to see the yolks of her future eggs. That was quite amazing. One was fully formed, another a little smaller, another even smaller, etc, and maybe a hundred itty bitty ones.

At one point near the end I commented that this was the first chicken I had ever killed and they were both very surprised. They even asked a few times to make sure they had understood me correctly. I was even more surprised that they were surprised. I think living so closely with them for so long it is easy to forget just how different we are. I asked if they had ever eaten a chicken from a store and they said they always know whose chicken it was, they had never bought a chicken from the store. I explained in America you can easily buy a chicken in a store and have no idea where it was raised. They frowned and shook their heads disapprovingly saying you should never buy a chicken unless you know who raised it. I smile. When I was still in America I could easily imagine having that discussion with some arbitrary African. But now to have the discussion with the 2 men that I share my daily life with was completely surreal. I love them both so much and have so much to learn from them.

Kaia did notice that very morning that Sauli and Legs were missing. She hasn't talked much about it though. We havn't eaten them yet. We will give to one to Moses. I think it is a very meaningful gift since we built the coop together, raised them together, and killed them together.

So a few boxes later we were ready for...

AND MOVING DAY!!!!

Did I mention that Saidi will come with us to our new house? We are so happy! Despite telling him that our new house is easy to find AND giving him a map, between consecutive 13 hour overnight shifts, he came to help us move to make sure he would be able to find the place. What a sweetie. He is in the striped shirt. Moses is in green.

My greatest fear was that the chicken coop wouldn't make it but arrived safe and sound. We were blessed to find a friend with a huge truck AND to have 7 strapping men to help us move. I can't believe they carried this by hand, I really didn't think it would happen.

Chickens... Check.

And here is everything we own. Apparently more than we thought we had.
FYI... the guy in the foreground is wearing Kaia's summer straw hat :)

There goes my chicken coop. We filled this truck 4 times!

As always Theo was very helpful. If you are wondering why he is naked it is because I sent the 'day bag' on the first trip with Carl, all the other clothes were packed.

We also filled a bus. Just enough room for Theo to squeeze in for a ride.

And Kaia is just a little excited to be on her way to the castle.

We also filled this bus once.

I moved to Egypt with one duffel bag. What the heck happened in 14 years!!

~

How cute is it that Theo fell asleep on the ride!!

And here we are settling in. The last owner left a crazy ugly and tattered puppy-kitten-thing. Kaia loves it. Blah!!

A huge thank you goes out to Amy too... for spending the day at my side, taking care of my children, and documenting the day beautifully for your viewing pleasure.

Lots and lots more fun stories to come in the new house. Stay tuned for great rat, roach, and frog stories to come :)

3 comments:

Yay toes! I wore purple leggings yesterday and they matched perfectly! I hope things are starting to settle. I can't even feel your presence on this side of town anymore. :( Did you see that cat/dog/thing that Kaia has in the bottom picture? I think it was the owner's? Hopefully he took it with him. ;) In the photo, they were trying to get Laika to sleep on it like a pillow.

I JUST FOUND THE BLOG WEDNESDAY MORNING .I BET YOU ARE PROUD OF THAT LITTLE GUY GOING OFF ON A PLAY DATE WITHOUT YOU!GOOD JOB THEO!GOOD TO HEAR ALL IS IN YOUR NEW HOME.YOU WILL RAISE MORE CHIKS I ASSUME?

About Us

Our home is where our heart is and our heart is currently in Tanzania. I have been living abroad for 13 years and Carl for 15. Our children were born in Finland and Tanzania. Every day is an adventure but we sure miss Grandma and Grandpa! Here's to you guys, all 4 of you!